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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24031819">It All Comes Down to a Choice</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/LEDbiantastic/pseuds/LEDbiantastic'>LEDbiantastic</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Carmilla (Web Series)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/F, Stream of Consciousness</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 14:55:50</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,973</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24031819</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/LEDbiantastic/pseuds/LEDbiantastic</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>What is going through Carmilla's mind during the events of the pivotal episodes in season 1, 17-22? Here's one interpretation.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Laura Hollis/Carmilla Karnstein</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>It All Comes Down to a Choice</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>A/N: Since the first time I watched this show in the summer of 2018, I’ve been especially fascinated by the way the story turned in the span of episodes 17-22. This story is me attempting to understand what was going through Carmilla’s mind during that pivotal time. I hope you enjoy it. Warning: Contains many swears.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>It All Comes Down to a Choice</strong>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>I was already feeling it. The feeling I had felt once before in my long, long life. The inevitable, the impending doom, the fall.</p>
<p>She’s so annoying, and nosy, and self-righteous. I can’t stand her. But I felt myself softening toward her when she declared even I—even a cold-hearted monster such as I—deserve a better world. And then she showed me sympathy, not knowing that my distress was caused by Mother ordering her doom and my complicity. I tried to hold back, keep my defenses up. She hardly had a chance of surviving, and I decided not to get too attached—as if it were a choice. But if I could make it a choice, my choice was to not let myself feel any affection for her. I convinced myself it was pure attraction and that I could seduce her and be done with it. It wasn’t too hard, since she never stopped being so damn irritating.</p>
<p>Laura shines. Bright and innocent like the sun. Her pure desire to help people, to save them, draws people to her. Even a creature of the darkness like me. A night flyer—a moth like me has no chance trying to stay away from such brightness. Naïve, she assumes that if she can figure it out, if she can solve the mystery, that’ll be enough to save everyone caught up in my mother’s web. Like an old episode of Scooby-Doo, once they reveal who the monster is, it’s all over, the jig is up. Curses, foiled again, meddling kids, yadda yadda.</p>
<p>But I know better. She can’t save them; they’re lost already. But not her. She drew mother’s attention the moment her first video appeared online and I was sent to make sure she got caught. But her light drew me in, and I hesitated to do what was required of me. I chose to wait, to dally, to see what she might do. I chose to get her a protective charm and hope mother would lose interest without inquiring why. Now I’m surely under suspicion for my delays. Each day riskier than the last.</p>
<p>This is the quandary I found myself in when she asked me to a party. It would have been a perfect opportunity to take her, but I wanted her for myself. I wanted it to be a perfect opportunity to flirt with—and seduce—her. Instead of planning how I would entice her away from safety and into my mother’s clutches, I planned my outfit. I picked out tight leather pants to keep up my “bad” appearance. I pulled my black bustier out of the wardrobe. <em>This oughta get her attention. </em>I thought with satisfaction. Aside from the cleavage, the bustier showed a lot of skin. I visited Maman’s wine cellar in her house and grabbed a bottle of her second-best champagne and two flutes. Between my outfit and the champagne, I would definitely have her tonight. I tried to convince myself that this wasn’t any more than I would do for another sexy young co-ed that I wanted to fuck.</p>
<p>I walked into the room and she took my breath away. She was wearing a white off-the-shoulders dress that looked how people think we dressed back when I was alive. The dress gave her an ethereal, angelic beauty. Her neck and shoulders looked so enticing. No one dresses like that if they don’t want to flirt. I ordered my brain to think of something wry and cynical to say about her dress—must keep up appearances.</p>
<p>“Don’t you look like a virgin sacrifice.” <em>If I had made a different choice tonight, you would be,</em> I couldn’t help thinking.</p>
<p>“I’m not the one in a corset, which: wow.”</p>
<p>When she said that, I knew I’d be successful. So I waxed poetic, as was my wont, about the nature of parties. Many a woman has fallen prey to the allure of my rhetoric. But then I noticed she wasn’t wearing the charm I had obtained for her—the anti-vampire charm that I’d hoped would keep her from my mother. I felt angry with her. <em>Fucking dammit, you innocent little cream-filled-cupcake-puff! If I’m going to risk my own skin to save your little life, the least you can do is accept the help I give you! </em>I knew it was unreasonable—she didn’t know what the charm was really for, after all. She had no idea of the danger she was in. Despite my anger, I still wanted her. But now my want was less gently-leading-her-down-the-path-of-kisses-and-skin and more pin-her-on-the-bed-and-make-her-beg. <em>Oh is she going to pay for putting herself in danger like that. Her body is going to do things tonight that she doesn’t know it can do.</em></p>
<p>And then she had the gall to pick up her phone to send a message to her friends. <em>Is she deliberately trying to thwart my lustful machinations? Or is she somehow incredibly, unbelievably unaware of my ulterior motives?</em> Either way, I knew it would be over if her friends intruded on our evening. <em>No. </em>I decided. <em>I want her alone tonight.</em></p>
<p>And that’s when her friends jumped me. Snakes they are, needing her light as much as I do, but as creatures of the day who soak it up and go on with their lives. Not me, the moth making a suicide dive into her. They jumped me and I saw Will, that fucker, with them. Smirking at me, pretending to be one of them, on their side. He’s been trying to oust me as Maman’s favorite for decades. <em>He’ll use this against me somehow.</em> He has no idea just how little I care.</p>
<p>But with him involved I knew I was in trouble. <em>He’s probably going to tell Maman I got captured. He’ll suggest I’m weak. What’s her likely next move? She’d know without Will here I could have taken them all. He’ll probably tell her I didn’t put up enough of a fight, and she’ll know I’m holding back. She’s first going to send someone to free me. Probably Will, he won’t be suspicious around here. She’ll make him wait at least a few days, in case these meddlers are smart enough to figure out that only someone involved with my capture would know to come rescue me right away. So I have some time to think, to decide what to do.</em></p>
<p>There are two possible outcomes. I help Will take Laura and bring her to Maman. Laura dies. I lose her. But I’m safe. I don’t get hurt; I stay alive. Or I help Laura escape. She lives, hopefully. Maman punishes me—maybe kills me this time. But <em>she</em> lives.</p>
<p>
  <em>Okay, these are my choices. But I don’t like them. I want an option where both Laura and I get out of this in one piece. So I need to think. I need to come up with another solution. I need to think strategically, like I’m playing chess with Maman.</em>
</p>
<p>Laura and her friends decide to starve me until I talk. I’m not going to talk. My goal is for myself and Laura to survive, I’m not giving them information that would get us all killed. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to starve. But death at their hands would be better than Maman burying me for eternity again.</p>
<p>Days pass, days and days. No Will comes to free me—neither on Mother’s orders nor on his own initiative. It occurs to me that maybe Will didn’t tell Maman about helping to capture me. <em>He lets me stew for weeks while Maman questions my loyalty or my abilities. She sends someone—Will—to find out why I haven’t reported to her and Will gets to tell her how I let a bunch of puny humans take me captive and maybe my heart isn’t in it anymore, figuratively speaking.</em> I have to admit, it’s a smart move. Smarter than I gave him credit for. He gains standing for freeing me and helping me take Laura. I look bad for letting humans take me down. Will moves up in Maman’s esteem.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, I nearly do starve. I feel myself falling into blackness from the stupor I was already in from lack of blood.</p>
<p>The next sensation I have is cold blood in my mouth and a hand cupping the back of my head. Her voice gasps in relief, “Oh thank god!” <em>She’s—glad? She’s glad I’m not dead? Why is she glad I’m not dead?</em> It must be because of the information she thinks I have about the missing girls. To be fair, I do have some information. I know how they disappeared and who’s behind it. But where they go, what happens to them, how to help? I know none of that. My information—if she ever gets it—will be useless to her. And I’m weak, mortified, and angry. <em>Who is this child who thinks she can tie me up and withhold sustenance from me?</em> And why does it feel like more than the garlic is holding me to my spot? “Dammit.” I grumble.</p>
<p>“Do you want some more?” She asks, all concerned and helpful like it’s not her fault I’m tied to a chair.</p>
<p><em>Not like this, not from you, not with you hand-feeding me like an injured animal. </em>“Fine.” I hate how weak I sound, how my voice trembles.</p>
<p>She feeds me, she embarrasses me, she listens to my anger. But she gives me the chance to convince her of my innocence. It almost sounds like she could believe me; it almost sounds like she wants to believe me. I’m thinking about it, thinking about trying to convince her. Maybe even with the truth. And then the little cupcake accuses me of trying to eat her.</p>
<p>“Wait, you thought that was me trying to eat you?” <em>Oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no.</em></p>
<p>She figures it out. She. Figures. It. Out. <em>This was not the plan this was not the plan this was not the plan. I was going to be cool, sensual, and distant. She was going to be irresistibly attracted to me. I’d give her a wild, passionate night and then be aloof until my mother’s minions successfully took her. And I wouldn’t care. I. Wouldn’t. Care. I’m not supposed to actually care what she thinks about me. </em></p>
<p>And suddenly I feel my heart clench and realize I’ve been the one in danger for a while now because I’ve got feelings for her. And now she knows… something, and I suddenly wish I could escape because she’s looking at me and she knows. <em>She knows. </em>“Could you just stake me now? ‘Cause I think that would be less mortifying than this conversation.”</p>
<p><em>I’m in trouble. Not only have I managed to actually care about one of the sacrifices, but now she knows it too. I’m so weak. And I can still feel myself being gently tugged toward her. She’ll get what she wants from me. I can’t hold back from her any more. </em>It’s like I don’t have a choice.</p>
<p>“If you want us to trust you, you have gotta tell us your side of the story.” She demands it like it’s a trifle for me to give to her.</p>
<p><em>Alright, sugar pie wants my story? I’ll give her my story. But none of your poetry, Carmilla, just cold, hard facts. She doesn’t get to have my sadnesses, my griefs, my pains—not yet. Just the story. </em>She even looks eager to hear it. “Alright then, buckle up creampuff. We’re gonna be in for a long night. Or, you know, Wednesday afternoon.”</p>
<p>Laura smiles at me encouragingly. But, before I can even open my mouth she turns off the webcam, blurting: “Wait!”</p>
<p>“What?” I’m exasperated.</p>
<p>“I need to get ready for this.” Laura scurries around the room, making herself a mug of cocoa and grabbing a handful of chocolate chip cookies. I expect her to have me start, but instead she makes small talk, asking me about vampires. Then she looks at me with realization written on her face, though what she’s realizing I can’t say. I’m sure I’ll find out. “You should have more blood before you start. I don’t want you getting all seizure-y while you’re in the middle of your story.”</p>
<p>“I’ll be fine.”</p>
<p>“No no, you have to have more.” She picks the mug of blood back up and brings it to my face. I don’t have the energy to argue, and it seems she’s leaving me no choice but to let her feed me like a baby. I sip the blood obediently, feeling a little resentful.</p>
<p>She turns her webcam back on, much to my dismay. I try to tell her it’s weird, but she really wants the world to see me proclaim my innocence and I don’t care enough to keep arguing.</p>
<p>“This is your chance. Tell us your story. Convince me and the folks at home that you didn’t guzzle Betty like a slurpie.”</p>
<p><em>I don’t want a chance. I don’t want to tell or convince anyone except you. But if this is what you want of me, I will do it. I guess I don’t get a choice about whether my story is heard by one or by many. </em>So I give her the facts and she demands I tell it better, like my story is a work of fiction for her to enjoy. She gets another Idea that I know I don’t want to know about. Then she turns off the webcam again and walks to her side of the room, out of my field of vision. I hear sounds like things being dragged across the floor, and some kind of container opening.</p>
<p>“What are you doing?” I’m annoyed because I can’t see her. I crane my neck and she’s still out of my vision. <em>Damn being tied to a chair.</em></p>
<p>She comes back into view and her arms are brimful of: “Sock puppets?”</p>
<p>“Yes.”</p>
<p>“Why do you have sock puppets, cupcake?”</p>
<p>“Because it’s what I used to do as a kid! I made up stories and acted them out with sock puppets.”</p>
<p><em>You precious cinnamon roll.</em> “I get that, Frosted Flake, I mean, why did you bring sock puppets to college?”</p>
<p>“Nnnnnn because!”</p>
<p>“Because?”</p>
<p>“Because they’re comforting!”</p>
<p>I just look at her.</p>
<p>“It’s not weird to bring stuffed animals to college! They remind you of home and make you feel safe. Well, I don’t have stuffed animals, I have sock puppets.” She heaps the limp sock puppets onto her desk and approaches me. She grabs the back of the chair and wheels it back a few feet.</p>
<p>My arms are tied behind the back of the chair, but they clench, trying to grab something, anything. The feeling of being wheeled backward with nothing to hold onto wrings my stomach, to my utter surprise. It feels out of control in a way that makes me feel like I’m going to fall over and it’ll hurt. Which is ridiculous because a little fall would hardly hurt me.</p>
<p>“Warn me next time!” My voice comes out harsher than I meant it to.</p>
<p>“Sorry.” She goes back to her side of the room, and now from the corner of my eye I can see her dive under her bed and carefully withdraw something brown and flat. She brings it over and unfolds it, facing me with an adorable—I mean nauseating—grin on her face. It’s a puppet theater, with red curtains and all. <em>She brought a puppet theater to college. And a bunch of sock puppets. Is she for real?</em> “You don’t think, perhaps, this makes light of my tragic backstory?” I say it emotionlessly, but inside I’m exasperated and a little defensive.</p>
<p>I start again, telling my story from my own murder. Laura acts it out melodramatically with the sock puppets. <em>I can’t remember the last time I told someone all of this. Have I ever told someone all of this? Maman was there, and the only people I’ve been close to since are other vampires and Elle. And I didn’t tell Elle any of my history; I hid it from her.</em> It feels grotesquely fitting that the first time I share my full history with someone, it’s with someone I’m falling for and she’s treating it like an amusing melodrama to elicit reactions from her imagined audience. <em>Of course I shouldn’t expect a sympathetic ear and privacy the first time I have to relate my past. No, no, I should tell an online audience and watch it play out with sock puppets to remind me of how pathetic I really am. Yeah, that’s right Carmilla, you’re pathetic. You’re so desperate for sympathy from this one human that you’re spilling out the details of your pathetic, tragic past. Maman would love this if she wouldn’t be furious about me spilling secrets to a human. </em>Watching my most painful memories enacted with children’s toys made them hurt in a whole new kind of pain. I was grateful when Laura’s hands dropped from the theater when I recounted the fate of Elle and myself. Her sympathy and respect for my sorrow made the telling more bearable.</p>
<p>Laura latches on to the fact that I’ve been helping some of the targets escape. And oh sweet summer child, she thinks I want to save everybody just like her. She’s so wrong but it is so cute. “We find your mother and we get our friends back.”</p>
<p><em>‘We’ she says, like it goes without saying that I’m going to join her little squad. </em>I don’t have the heart to tell her how irrelevant those lives are to me and my desire to feel as though I’ve outmaneuvered Maman. My desire for revenge is just that—a desire for revenge. And Maman is undefeatable. Her squad is on a suicide mission. I want no part of it.</p>
<p>Laura gathers her little posse to discuss me and my captivity. I’m given blood and entertainment and ignored. I’m sure this respite will be short lived, but I decide to stay out of their affairs and plan for myself. If they go up against my mother and get caught and she kills or tortures them horribly, I won’t be implicated if I’m tied up here. I’m thinking about Mother’s likely next step. At this point I have to assume that she doesn’t know I’ve been captured. Which means Will is trying to make me look incompetent or traitorous. At this point she’s surely noticed my absence. Even more certainly she’s noticed that she hasn’t been brought one of her sacrifices. Soon she will send someone to make sure I’m in line. I know it’s going to be Will; she knows he won’t look out of place coming and going from here. He’s going to be so smug about helping to take me down and then getting sent to make sure I’m doing my chores. When he comes, I will be expected to capture Laura and bring her back to Maman with him.</p>
<p>Laura—that little confection—has grown on me even more. Have I, a three hundred year old vampire, gotten Stockholm Syndrome for a human? Absurd. I was already trying to protect her. I was already trying to ensure she was one that got away. It’s her shine; she softened my icy heart. Suddenly, I understand—even envy—her brash Amazon. To charge into battle for her feels honorable, redemptive, inevitable, right.</p>
<p>Two instincts war within me. I’ve been playing the long game with Maman. Be subtle, stay alive, keep myself just above suspicion. Never again let myself feel as I did for Elle—never again have anything precious to lose to Maman. Never have something to protect. Never value another equal to, or greater than, myself. Never feel. Thaw. Try.</p>
<p>If I kill Will when he frees me, we could escape, the two of us. I’m not joining their crusade against my mother, it’s stupid to antagonize her outright instead of resist in secret. <em>Problem, Laura probably wouldn’t leave without helping the others.</em> And even if she would opt to run away with me, I’m not sure I can take Will in a fight—weakened as I am. No, I think my solution must be subtle. I need Laura to escape such that Will can’t tell it was me behind it.</p>
<p>Over the hours that pass I plan a strategy. If I can get my hands on Laura’s cell phone as soon as I’m free, I can send out a distress call in her name while Will and I take her in. Or I could find a way to make sure she has her phone and is able to use it. Her little posse will come to her rescue and Will won’t know I called them here. It’s a good plan, as long as I can pull it off. I just need to snatch her phone when neither of them are looking. I can’t plan for that, which makes me nervous.</p>
<p>Will comes in the middle of the night, at last. I’m weak. I can tell he knows it too, he’s smirking at me and calling me “kitty,” which he knows annoys me. As I move around for the first time in over a week, I try to remember where Laura’s phone is—thinking about how to put my plan into action.</p>
<p>Laura wakes up—we’re not exactly being quiet—and at first she doesn’t see. She thinks Will is innocent, tells him to run, tells him what I am. I can hear just how much he savors telling her he’s one too. He likes the moment when they go from trusting him to fearing him. He’s ready to grab her. <em>Damn, I haven’t found her phone yet. He’s going to expect me to help any second, I need a delay, an excuse, something!</em></p>
<p>But she surprises me. Delivering a perfect jab right to Will’s throat and then running for the bathroom. The escaping quiet chuckles give away my utter glee. I watch them fight, amused. Every jab or kick she lands makes me want to laugh out loud and cheer, but I content myself with watching quietly, committing Will’s indignities to memory for later enjoyment. Then the tide turns and Will catches first one arm, then the other in quick succession. Her twists her around and pins her arms behind her back. I’m still quite entertained, waiting to see if the little éclair has any more tricks up her sleeve. I’m biding until I can put my own plan in action. I can’t stop myself from eying her up and down as Will marches her back towards me. In her simple, long-sleeved gray pajama shirt and pajama pants, I can see how lithe her body is. The fabric clings without being tight and I want to touch where it touches her.</p>
<p>My amusement disappears when I realize that she’s pissed Will off. He wants to bite her, to kill her. I try to remind him that our victims are to be brought to Mother, not killed. But he’s angry enough to take it out on me and eat her just to hurt me. Whether he knows that I care for her or just thinks that it’ll get me in trouble with Maman matters not.</p>
<p>My plan is out the window. I have to act, to decide.</p>
<p>I can let him kill her and affect unconcern. I’ll be safe, Maman won’t know of my disloyalty. But I’ll watch her die. Or I can save her. I’ll be in trouble, Maman will probably punish me again.</p>
<p>I have to choose.</p>
<p>
  <em>Her or me. HER OR ME. Herormeherormeherorme—FUCK!</em>
</p>
<p>WHAM!</p>
<p>I punch him.</p>
<p>
  <em>Her. Of course.</em>
</p>
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